Psychodynamic Approach to Gender Development 1

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Gender development through Identification and Internalisation

Freud’s psychodynamic approach included an explanation of how gender developed. Two main processes are involved: identification and internalisation. Freud described the Oedipus complex for boys and Carl Jung described the Electra complex for girls.

Freud’s five stages

Freud’s psychodynamic approach involves five stages of psychosexual development:
- Oral (0-18 months): obtaining pleasure through the mouth, children exhibit sucking behaviour.
- Anal (18 months-3.5 years): children exhibit behaviours like keeping or discarding faeces.

Freud’s five stages cont.

Phallic (3.5-6 years): genital fixation. This is when children develop their gender. They become acutely aware of the different genitals. Boys will go through the Oedipus complex while girls go through the Electra complex.
Latent (6 years- puberty): as they are not sexually active, children are sexually repressed.
Genital (puberty- adult): these sexual urges are awakened.

The phallic stage

The phallic stage is the focus for gender development.
The children become aware of the different genitals.
Initially, they believe that females have been castrated (male genitalia has been removed).

Oedipus and Electra

Because of these differences in genitalia and the misconception about female castration, children will develop unconscious anxieties and desires.
These manifest themselves as the two complexes:
- Oedipus complex - described by Freud for boys.
- Electra complex - described by Carl Jung for girls.

Identifying and internalising

There are two important processes that occur during the phallic stage: identifying and internalising.
- Identifying is when the child identifies with the parent of their own sex. For example, a boy will identify with his father.
- Internalising is when the child takes in the behaviours/attitudes/actions of their identified parent. They begin to take on these behaviours as their own.

Oedipus Complex

The oedipus complex occurs in boys and was described by Freud.

The oedipus complex

The complex involves boys initially being romantically attracted to their mother.
They see their father as competition for their mother’s attention.
They therefore become hostile and aggressive towards their father.

Castration anxiety

As they see their father as being more dominant and more powerful, the boy develops castration anxiety- the fear that their father will castrate them if the father was to discover the boy’s feelings towards his mother.
To alleviate this anxiety, the boy begins to identify with his father.

Superego

Eventually, the boy will internalise the behaviours of the father as their superego.
The superego develops during this stage.
Recall that the superego involves both the unconscious and conscious parts of the mind.
The superego guides our behaviour by taking into account our morals. It was what makes us feel guilty.
This will result in the boy developing a male gender identity.

Female desire

The boy manages the desire he feels for his mother by displacing it onto other women.

Electra Complex

Carl Jung described the Electra complex for girls.

Oedipus complex

The Electra complex was proposed by Carl Jung, a correspondent of Freud.
Freud did not like the name Electra complex.
Freud believed that girls also went through the Oedipus complex but because of penis envy, they switched their desire from their mother to their father.
Essentially, it is the opposite of the Oedipus complex.

Penis envy

Girls feel desire for their father and exhibit hostility towards their mother.
The desire for their father is a result of penis envy, which is the concept that as girls do not have a penis, they wish that they have one.
As their father has one, they begin to feel desire for him.

Superego

The hostility for their mother is a result of them blaming her for their castration. They hold her responsible for them not having a penis.
The hostility is balanced by a fear of losing their mother’s love because of their feelings for their father.
Girls identity with their mother once they repress these feelings of hostility. They then internalise their mother’s actions/beliefs/behaviours and just like boys, this is internalised as her superego.

Displacement

Girls will develop a female gender identity.
Like boys repress their desire for the mother through displacement, girls also repress their desire for a penis.
They displace this desire with a desire to have a baby.